FOMOfx - Virtual Jeff

Started by mbenigni, January 07, 2016, 09:46:03 AM

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mbenigni

It's insane to think all of this polyphonic analysis and processing is getting done in real-time based on a monophonic signal.  I'd be curious to hear opinions from anyone who bumps into these guys at NAMM.

http://www.fomofx.com/

! No longer available





Virtual Jeff is the next- generation successor to the traditional whammy – it eliminates all mechanical hassles.

As a result, you can use it on electrics and acoustics... without affecting the guitar or tuning.

It's much more though: the pitch data from the whammy is massaged by the Virtual Jeff processor. You can select exactly what pitch you reach at the end of a bend, up or down.
Now, bends are predictable and can be used musically – as part of a unique lick or riff. Don't try that with a mechanical whammy unless you've got 20 years to practice first.
Virtual Jeff has pitch-perfect bends every time.
It's also versatile: there's two modes, selectable with a footswitch. Each mode is customized by the player to bend to different pitches.
For example: Mode A can be set like a Bigsby™ – 2 semitones down, one semitone up; Mode B, like a Floyd Rose™ on steroids – two octaves down, one octave up.
Hit the footswitch at any time to instantly swap modes. The technologies in Virtual Jeff are unique and affordable – and they don't affect your tone. All mechanics and sensing are durable and high resolution by design. They'll work all night in a club, stadium, studio or bedroom.
No fuss. Just fun.

SLICK

Hmm, interesting, so it's a bit like a Polyphonic digitech whammy with the treadle on the face of your guitar then?
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guitarno

#2
Yeah that does look very very interesting. :o Would really like the opinion of anyone here that can go to the show and try it out in person.  8)
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thebrushwithin

Praying this is not crazy expensive! I think having this in combination with the StrongArm sustainer  (hopefully out this year), will be a must have.

Elantric

#4
If you read their Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/fomofx

- we know

* FOMOfx  - Virtual Jeff" is a product from New Zealand  / Australia  and has been promoted since March 2015

* Designed By 4design and FOMOfx

http://www.4design.co/

https://www.good-design.com/entry/virtual-jeff-digital-whammy-bar-system/


Clearly there is a separate "DSP Box" as part of the system,

But the big question

What is the price for " Virtual Jeff" ?[/i]))

--Update May 2016
Rewatch the NAMM videos, and see the Digitech Whammy pedal on the ground on the pedal board at the Virtual Jeff NAMM Booth.

The latest Digitech Whammy supports external MIDI Control, and the Virtual Jeff simply feeds MIDI CC# data (via 5pin DIN MIDI connection) to the Whammy pedal that does the actual audio processing. So add purchase of a new Digitech Whammy pedal when considering the Virtual Jeff



Virtual Jeff MIDI OUT Feeds Whammy pedal MIDI INPUT HERE:

GuitarBuilder

I'm concerned how it would attach to the guitar.  It'll have to be very secure to act as a whammy bar and if it's just stuck to the finish I'll bet it comes off at the worst possible time.
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scratch17

Why limit it to pitch? Why not make it able to send MIDI CC messages? Then you could control any parameter.
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Elantric

#7
QuoteWhy not make it able to send MIDI CC messages? Then you could control any parameter.

I will check them out at NAMM and report what functions their "Virtual Jeff"  receiver box at the other end supports.

Update - yes Virtual Jeff transmits MIDI CC# messages - at Virtual Jeff NAMM Booth, they  used a Digitech Whammy DT to performing audio pitch bending for all the demos:
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=18269.msg130024#msg130024

QuoteUsing MIDI continuous control commands, the Whammy's expression pedal position can be remotely controlled. MIDI CC11 adjusts the expression pedal position. A value of 0 on MIDI CC11 corresponds to a toe up position and a value of 127 corresponds to a toe down position.





 

ericar123

Couldn't this same thing be done with a pot hooked up to a piece of plastic for the whammy bar and then wired to a stereo plug and plugged into the VG99 expression pedal jack? We already have a 13 pin cord going to our guitar . Another cord wouldn't be too much trouble.

mooncaine


vanceg

Quote from: thebrushwithin on January 08, 2016, 09:39:05 AM
Praying this is not crazy expensive! I think having this in combination with the StrongArm sustainer  (hopefully out this year), will be a must have.

Have you looked at the Aescher resonators?  They might be a decent option for you if KMI doesn't come out with the Strong Arm this year.

vanceg

Quote from: ericar123 on January 09, 2016, 06:01:22 AM
Couldn't this same thing be done with a pot hooked up to a piece of plastic for the whammy bar and then wired to a stereo plug and plugged into the VG99 expression pedal jack? We already have a 13 pin cord going to our guitar . Another cord wouldn't be too much trouble.

Yes, it can.  It's not QUITE as simple as you describe as you need for the volume pot that you are using to center itself (so that you can move the whammy bar both up and down).  I use a pedal for this. But I could imagine using a whammy bar type controller designed to center itself, attached to a standard volume pot.

The pedal centers itself using springs.  So in it's rest state, it sits in the middle of it's travel.  I then run this volume pedal into a CV to MIDI converter and then run the MIDI into the VG-99.  When the pedal is sitting in it's rest state, the pedal sends a MIDI CC value of 64 to the VG-99.  When I push the volume pedal up the the Toe position, it sends cc value of 128 and in the heel position it sends a 0.

I then use the Assign page to map that MIDI CC message to the T-Arm Control parameter.   With some very careful setting of the Target Min and Target Max values and the Source Active Range values, I can get a GREAT whammy bar effect by moving this self-centering pedal up or down.

I can set the range of the pitch bend, and if I map it to Bend, I can get some really great effects where some strings are bending up while others are bending down.

I'm thinking that what I might want is just the SHELL of the Virtual Jeff - I just want the whammy bar mechanics and a control voltage output...which may be what they are doing (I mean, they may be connecting the Virtual Jeff whammy bar to an external box that actually contains the audio I/O and pitch shifting. 

Exciting!

Now_And_Then

 "You can select exactly what pitch you reach at the end of a bend, up or down." 

I dunno about this.

I don't always know in advance what I'm going to do with the whammy bar. I might go 25 cents and then go a whole tone on one note, or 25 cents on one note and then a whole tone on the next note, or a few notes later. Or I might do one and not the other.

If I need to decide in advance on the ultimate target of the bend, I would feel very constricted.

Smash

A pot that centres itself? so like a Playstation/Xbox analog stick? I'm already waiting for the life hack....

thebrushwithin

QuoteHave you looked at the Aescher resonators?  They might be a decent option for you if KMI doesn't come out with the Strong Arm this year.

Thanks! I was not familiar with the Aeschers. I'm good for now, with Fernandes, Sustainiacs, and a Moog EM1, but very interested in the way the StrongArm works, especially, if I customize a "FrankenStrat". This whammy looks awesome.

Smash

Been thinking about Virtual jeff a bit more and the thing that makes whammy sound like whammy is the fact the strings detune at different rates as the bar goes down - VJ seems to be saying all strings go at same rate down to a preset minimum. Isn't that gonna sound a bit odd?

Elantric

QuoteIsn't that gonna sound a bit odd?

No worse than a keyboard Pitch bend wheel or a guitar with a Steinberger TransTrem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransTrem


vanceg

Quote from: thebrushwithin on January 11, 2016, 11:25:52 AM
Thanks! I was not familiar with the Aeschers. I'm good for now, with Fernandes, Sustainiacs, and a Moog EM1, but very interested in the way the StrongArm works, especially, if I customize a "FrankenStrat". This whammy looks awesome.

I hear ya.  I had a guitar built around the Vo96 (the successor to the Moog guitar in SOME ways) and it's about as wonderful as the moog guitar. It's really made as more of a "harmonic controller" than a sustainer.  The StrongArm looks like it's meant to be a sustainer and nothing else...which is awesome in it's own right.  I'm really looking forward to really being able to TRY a Strongarm.... Let's hope they are actually shipping at NAMM...though I'm not holding my breath.

vanceg

Quote from: Smash on January 12, 2016, 07:11:28 AM
Been thinking about Virtual jeff a bit more and the thing that makes whammy sound like whammy is the fact the strings detune at different rates as the bar goes down - VJ seems to be saying all strings go at same rate down to a preset minimum. Isn't that gonna sound a bit odd?

Well, yes. And no.  But that's one of the great things about the VG-99's whammy bar implementation:  It has several modes, each of which detunes the strings a little bit differently.  The Floyd model really makes the strings detune differently from each other, while the TransTrem model detunes them equally.... I find both to be really useful for different situations.  Sometimes I really love using the TransTrem model and just 'whammying" down an octave and playing there for a moment before sweeping back up to pitch.... other times the dive bomb floyd method sounds more appropriate.   

The Virtual Jeff, I ASSUME (since it's not truly polyphonic as far as any of us can tell so far) will likely shift all strings equally.

vanceg

Quote from: Smash on January 11, 2016, 06:20:43 AM
A pot that centres itself? so like a Playstation/Xbox analog stick? I'm already waiting for the life hack....

I do it with springs ;-)  It's not super exact, but pretty darn good.

vanceg

Quote from: Now_And_Then on January 11, 2016, 03:05:47 AM
"You can select exactly what pitch you reach at the end of a bend, up or down." 

I dunno about this.

I don't always know in advance what I'm going to do with the whammy bar. I might go 25 cents and then go a whole tone on one note, or 25 cents on one note and then a whole tone on the next note, or a few notes later. Or I might do one and not the other.

If I need to decide in advance on the ultimate target of the bend, I would feel very constricted.

Perhaps consider this: your normal whammy bar ALWAYS constrains you to exactly what pitch is at the end of it's travel - There is always an upper and lower limit to the pitch you can produce due to the physics of your whammy bar.   You just sometimes choose to only bend it a little, and sometimes divebomb a moment later.... why would using the VJ be any different?  Couldn't you set it to pitch shift 1 oct and then only wiggle the VJ whammy bar a little tiny bit, thus shifting 25 cents? 

You may be onto something if the resolution of the whammy bar mechanism isn't very high...but from my brief discussions with the manufacturer, they are saying it's very high resolution....so.... I suspect you could set it to a "wide" range and then just manipulate the bar a little tiny bit to get a warbling effect.

mooncaine

Quote from: mooncaine on January 09, 2016, 01:50:56 PM
Nope, I tried it.

Sorry, I could have elaborated and explained that I tried lots of approaches, including ones very similar to vanceg's. I started by simply wiring up a pot to a 1/4 inch plug, and I tried a volume pedal, but then tried pitch wheels and joysticks because I wanted to bend up and down.

I found that relying on the spring to return a pitch wheel, or joystick, often failed to return exactly to pitch, and if it ain't exact, it's worthless. I was too dissatisfied with my tests, using a pitch wheel or a joystick, to trust mechanics alone to do the re-centering. Vance, what pedal are you using for that?

The pitch wheel (which is just a potentiometer with springs, probably like vanceg's pedal, presumably) from a keyboard never re-centered closely enough to be usable. The guitar was always sickly flat or sharp after moving the wheel. I found I could dial in more 'dead zone' because the VG-99's control options are amazingly awesome, but doing so left me with less 'live zone' and made it hard to find an exact pitch, like, bending up a perfect fourth. I want that. The smaller the zones are, the smaller the motion you've got to make with your controller.

The joystick from infusionsystems gave the same result, and it's length is so short it's also hard to find a pitch. Moreover, using it requires a bunch of wires, a MIDI connection to the VG-99, and just wasn't worth the hassle since it doesn't return to pitch.

I used the same infusionsystems kit to set up a perfect ribbon controller, but the same hassles with extra wires and MIDI connection come with it, and the ribbons have to be quite long to give fine control *and* the ability to dive-bomb the pitch. I placed 2 ribbons atop each other, each one set so that less than half of it is 'live'. Thus, the center region is 'dead zone' and everything works smoothly if I have a firm surface under the ribbons. Problem with this truly awesome controller, apart from the delicate wires and the mess of wires coming from my guitar: to use the ribbon, you gotta move your hand lengthwise along the strip, but your hand is busy doing things in the perpendicular direction, too. Tough to do some pitch bend moves if you have to keep your hand  there. Another prob: you need a VG-99 or, maybe, a GR-55 would do. You'd need 2 separate pitch bend effects to be operating at the same time, which the VG-99 can do. Ribbon one is tied to one effect, say, D-Beam pitch, and its range is set so it ignores more than half the range of input values coming in. Ribbon two is assigned to control the VG-99's Ribbon pitch effect, with its input values reversed. Dead zone is about two-fingertips wide. I don't know if I can do that with a GR-55.

BTW, I started all this with just a volume pedal and a wire, and then a couple of pots and  wires, before I tried all the above.

Then I put my piles of wires aside when the Livid Guitar Wing came out. It works well, it's wireless (big yay!) but needs an extra MIDI box to connect it to, well, anything except a USB port on a computer. Biggest downer: it has pressure pads and some short ribbons, all of which work quite well but are both similarly hard to control while you're also picking. Still, it's quite good and if it fit my Steinberger boat-oar I'd probably be happy enough.

But it doesn't, and anyway my quest has always been for a whammy bar, because the bar is in a great position for you when you want it, and you can let go of it when you don't, and a digital one should be adjustable with software just like a synth's pitch bendiness.... seems like it'd be my fave solution, but I won't know for sure till I try the FOMOfx box.

If it's also a MIDI controller that I could send MIDI from to control my VG's pitch-bending effects, then I'm already in love and ready to write the check, but even if it's just a standalone effect, I'm at least gonna be curious enough to buy and try.


Elantric

#22
QuoteVance, what pedal are you using for that?

left field  info - but Mission Engineering makes an Expression pedal for Fractal AXE-FX users that includes an optional spring.

but its only a one direction spring return  - not centered

http://missionengineering.com/?page_id=49
Q: What are the best Mission pedals for use with the Fractal Audio Axe-FX?
A: The Mission SP-1 and the Mission EP-1 are both designed for use with the Fractal Audio Axe-FX and the MFC-101 MIDI Controller. A very common configuration is to use two pedals; an SP-1 and an EP-1. The SP-1 can be used as a general purpose expression pedal and switch between various different effects within a patch as needed. The EP-1 is typically dedicated to a commonly used effect such as wah or volume. Players who make use of the Axe-Fx's auto-engage facility for wah or whammy, frequently select the spring load option for one pedal, which guarantees to return the pedal to heel down when your foot is removed, thus disabling the effect via auto-engage. The -R polarity switch option is not required when plugging the Mission pedals direct into the Axe-FX or MFC-101.


Virtual Jeff  / DIGITECH WHAMMY DT  (iMPORTANT side note)
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=18269.msg130024#msg130024

Now_And_Then

Quote from: vanceg on January 13, 2016, 07:44:35 PM
Perhaps consider this: your normal whammy bar ALWAYS constrains you to exactly what pitch is at the end of it's travel - There is always an upper and lower limit to the pitch you can produce due to the physics of your whammy bar.   You just sometimes choose to only bend it a little, and sometimes divebomb a moment later.... why would using the VJ be any different?  Couldn't you set it to pitch shift 1 oct and then only wiggle the VJ whammy bar a little tiny bit, thus shifting 25 cents? 

You may be onto something if the resolution of the whammy bar mechanism isn't very high...but from my brief discussions with the manufacturer, they are saying it's very high resolution....so.... I suspect you could set it to a "wide" range and then just manipulate the bar a little tiny bit to get a warbling effect.


What might be a problem is that the amount of travel of the whammy arm necessary for a given change in pitch will most likely change depending on the maximum pitch bend chosen. So a movement that would get you a quarter-tone change when the max pitch bend is set to one whole tone, would get you a change of one and a half tones when the max pitch bend is an octave, and three whole tones when it's two octaves. Kinda makes learning things more difficult than otherwise. Not the "twenty years" mentioned in the ad copy bit I'd have to think that it makes things more difficult.

We'll see how this works out in practice. I do have some interest in this but because the mechanical vibratos I have are really sufficient for my needs, my interest would be extremely cost-sensitive.

GuitarBuilder

What if one coupled the whammy bar/potentiometer/MIDI CC output with Antares ATG-1?  You could get 1 octave up/down pitch bends and it would return to perfect pitch afterwards (using solid tune).

That makes me wonder if I could build it into my next ATG luthier kit install.  I could include the MIDI Solutions Pedal Controller circuitry right on the guitar.
"There's no-one left alive, it must be a draw"  Peter Gabriel 1973